Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Carry her in my arms

Sometimes in my dreams, my mother is still ill.
Last night I dreamt that my parents had invited for a party, but nobody came, except my old nanny. I got annoyed and told off my parents, that they should have sent invites earlier, and not just the day before. Then my parents went walking, I don't know why, but I did not realise they were gone until after some time and I started to worry. A friend of mine was in the hall, he told me they went outside. I hurried out to find them, and sure enough, they were just round the corner. They were in good spirits, but then my mother fell. Was it my fault? I rushed to help her, crying I am sorry, and I picked her up to carry her home in my arms. But even though she was really skinny because of the treatment she had been through, she was heavy, or I was weak, and every step was a fight to keep standing. I was afraid I would stumble and fall.

Monday, January 09, 2012

The year of the blue jeans

(This post has been one year in the making)

If you know me, knew me or spent any amount of time with me before 2011, you would know that I never wear jeans. I don't buy them, so naturally I don't wear them. It is a habit I built very consistently, since before I started buying my own clothes. I simply would not wear blue jeans. Once in a while I might try some on, but always ending up preferring corderoy, linen or any other type of soft trousers over the stiff uncomfortable fabric of blue jeans... All this was as true as it is written until christmas of 2010. That christmas, I went - as I have for habit - to visit a good friend of mine in Odense. Since my last visit, which took place approximately a year earlier, she had not only given birth to a lovely baby boy, but had also increased a couple of sizes around the waist. And as it happens, she is the type who will wear 95% blue jeans, only exception being the skirts she wears in the summer. She offered me as a very generous gift her whole collection of jeans in various sizes all too small for her. I was hesitant at first, but accepted to bring home with me the grand total of 25 pairs!

Soon I selected the six pairs that fit me the best and gave the rest away, some to equal-or-slightly-smaller-sized friends and the rest to charity. I quickly got used to wearing them too. They are not uncomfortable if they are the right size, and for the most they will suit me, make me believe I have a nice shape.

So if you have seen me or met me or spent any amount of time with me in 2011, you will have noticed that I wear blue jeans 95% of the time. This may change in 2012, especially if I continue my combination of muscle-building exercises plus chocolate every day...

Photo courtesy: bluejeans-shop.com


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Thursday, November 04, 2010

No time


Suddenly everything is picking up speed: finishing my research projects, applying for a new job, planning my trip to Mexico and Cuba.
And suddenly I have more than enough things to do! New interesting research, more job opportunities, not to mention learning Spanish in my free time while dancing, playing badminton, hanging out with colleagues and weekend breaks to visit friends and family in Denmark. And soon I will have to make final decisions on where to work and where to live, and prepare to leave Holland behind. So much to do and so little time to do it!

Photo courtesy: The one-minute full body workout

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Monday, October 25, 2010

Why?

I am proud of my friends.
My friends respect me just as I respect them.
They have an interest in my well-being and will try to help me when they can. I try to help them too and enjoy being able to help. But if I am unable to help or if I am asked a favour and I say no, my friends will respect that too.
My friends respect my opinion. We may not always agree, but my friends accept our differences.
My friends respect my property, they will never steal from me and they will take good care of my things if I lend things out, and of course return my things at first opportunity.
My friends respect my time, they try their best to keep appointments and apologise if they made me wait.
My friends respect my home. They do not intrude on me, they ask my favour to be in my personal space. And my friends will leave my house when I ask them to.

Because my friends show me respect and care for me, I respect and care for them too.
You know this already if you are my friend. And that is why I am proud to be friends with you.

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I dreamt of a refugee camp


I dreamt I was in a refugee camp, or maybe it was a camp of revolutionaries, getting ready for the fight. I huddled in with the women. We were sitting with our back to a ruin of an outhouse. A sign said toilets and I went inside to have a look, it was dark in there, no electrical lights, only light enough to see the toilets were all blocked and there was no running water.
A sudden commotion made me rush outside, people were screaming, some in anger, some in excitement, pointing in the direction where I could see the bombs were falling. After a moment of chaos the bombing ceased, but a horde of driver-less vehicles that looked like harvesters were raiding the landscape, digging up and plowing everything until there was no sign of buildings or of the bombings that had taken place only a short while before.
I went to stand in line with everyone else at the official desk. When I handed the clerk my passport I noticed that it was not just a temporary passport, but that it looked fake, and I knew immediately that I had a passport like this because the embassy expected it to get stolen. Inside the passport were also some obviously fake money - it looked like monopoly money - and I had no clue what to use it for. The woman said some friendly phrases and gave me a bag full of kitchen utensils to get me started. I stared at the stuff, and another woman in line expressed her interest in what I was given.
I spent some time trying to get along. Wearing worn clothes, collecting stuff here and there, and hardly aware of what was going on with the other people in the camp, until someone shouted "it is his birthday! Cake! Cake! Cake!" and I saw some people crowding around a man and another guy running and shouting happily while balancing a fine-looking cake, which was obviously meant for the birthday guy.
When I tried to follow the man with the cake, the scenery changed, and I found myself in an enormous bakery and cake store. I remember saying to myself "oh, this is the place that I have visited before when I dreamt of the enormous chocolate shop". However I did not see lots of chocolate, but big exhibits of cake in all sorts and sizes. It was busy, I had to zigzag in between the customers in the store.
The store opened up to a scene or an arena, where there was a show coming on. I spent some time trying on a pair of khaki coloured dance shoes that someone else had brought with her. When they did not fit, her friend made a cut down the side of the leather so I could squeeze my foot in. I remember thinking that she was ruining the shoe. In the end I chose for another pair of shoes, a red/bordeaux pair that she had also brought with her.
The audience seats were filling up quickly. I told someone I would be right back, while I went to the nearby makeup department to have a look at what was on sale. There was a magnificent display of perfumes, and mascaras in different colours, and they were on sale, what luck I had. But when I asked for something in particular the woman behind the counter gave me directions to the other end, actually the complete opposite corner of the store. When I was about to leave I saw that on the other side of her stand she had the most wonderful gift-wrapped easter eggs and I thought of buying some for my sister.
I started walking, and passed by a number of different departments, and realised suddenly that I was no longer inside, but walking outside, and there was some kind of festival going on. I was controlling a big paper-like balloon which I was walking on the inside. The shadows falling on weird bicycles and men in high hats, were no longer recognisable, and took on new shapes and colours, and people gathered together to watch the spectacle. It was like a parade, and some people marched along with me. It was an eerie atmosphere like a Tim Burton movie...

Photo courtesy: Boiteaoutils

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Friday, September 10, 2010

Places to go


Not only am I busy planning my trip to Mexico and Cuba in January (it will be my first real vacation for a loooong time), I am also looking around for my next job - and it could be practically anywhere! Trying not to baffle myself with a myriad of options, I am looking within Europe, to make family visits easy and cheap, and I have a few places and job descriptions that are clear no-go for me, but for the rest... Oh... I could go anywhere!

Illustration courtesy: Dr. Seuss

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Through an endless tunnel


In my dream last night, in trying to escape from some unexplained capture in an empty building, I found a hole between two walls, and cautiously climbed in to explore. Inside, the walls of the tunnel were a light sandy colour, and though I climbed further and further, it did not grow dark. My exploration was stepwise; at every forking of the tunnel I chose either left or right, up or down, and the tunnel would bend and turn, made me dizzy, loosing my orientation, I had the feeling I was sometimes climbing the wall, sometimes the ceiling, and soon I lost track of how to retrace to the exit - and I panicked.

Illustration courtesy: Apple-pine.blogspot.com

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